Funerals For A Friend
by Funky In Fishnet
Summary: Post movie. The Avengers, and others, reflect on the friend they've lost and the trading cards left behind.


_**Disclaimer:** I own nothing**  
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_**Author Notes: **Set post-movie. **This fic contains a major movie plot spoiler.** You have been warned. The title is an adaptation of the band name Funeral for a Friend._**  
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**FUNERALS FOR A FRIEND**

**1. **Bruce's desk was always cluttered. It was where he stockpiled some of his important non-science possessions since he spent so much more time in the lab than in his room. There was a framed photograph of Betty. The photographer had caught her just as her mouth slid into a smile. Bruce liked that look on her. One of the desk drawers was filled with wrapped Twinkies. They weren't Bruce's snack of choice, but the Other Guy liked them so Bruce kept a healthy supply there, just in case.

A Captain America trading card was pinned firmly to his pen pot. The card was flecked with blood.

Bruce's gaze often wandered to his desk – to Betty, to the trading card. His hands frequently drifted over there too, but he never actually touched either object. Betty was far away and Coulson…..Bruce let out a breath, shook his head, and glanced at his ever-present security detail.

People knew not to remove either item. The Hulk's anger was nothing compared to Dr Banner's despair.

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**2. **Maria Hill kept photographs in her wallet. Nothing that looked personal or treasured. In fact they all looked like they'd been clipped from catalogues – a rosy happy family, smiling and laughing and enjoying life to the hilt. But they were also Maria's family and she often wished that she could spend more time with her nieces and nephew.

There was an all-text newspaper cutting tucked in with the photographs. It detailed a society function that she and Coulson had gone to together for a small-scale observation mission. They'd had their teamwork in those situations down to a more than passable art. Coulson had complimented her dress. She still had it in her closet. It was still one of her favourites.

Now, there was a trading card in there too.

It wasn't a memento of Coulson. Maria didn't need that. She had reams of good solid memories and the smell of his aftershave. The card was a reminder of how SHIELD ultimately viewed its employees. Just another cog in the machine pushing them forward. You would be remembered, fondly even, and you would be used, even after death.

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**3. **Darcy had been working for SHIELD for almost a year and had spent a chunk of it working alongside Coulson. She was the one who called Jane about his passing, her voice cracking. Jane had immediately booked a plane out, burning through the SHIELD scientists' arguments against it even before Thor's name came up. Darcy worked her SHIELD clearance magic and soon she and Jane were huddled together with tequila, ice cream, and a laptop's worth of information. Erik might be kept out of certain SHIELD business now, but Darcy was bros with the tech department and was powered by a raging anger and grief that was not going to be denied. Fury probably knew what she'd done – because he knew everything, Darcy was convinced that that freaky ability came from his eyepatch – but he hadn't stopped her.

Drinks in hand, Darcy and Jane sat close and watched the security tape of Coulson telling Thor that he'd arranged for Jane to be safe and out of the way during Loki's attack. Jane's heart squeezed. Thor had been here and he'd been concerned about her and Coulson had made sure that she was taken care of. He'd risen a lot higher in her estimations since the time he'd been the suit who'd stolen her stuff.

Darcy talked about working with Coulson. How he'd actually had a super dry sense of humour that most people hadn't noticed, how he'd confirmed or corrected any gossip that she'd brought him with his files, how he'd advised her to finish her degree and had said that SHIELD would help make it happen if that was her choice. How he'd been one of the only SHIELD agents that she could actually spend time with without wanting to start playing Angry Birds to survive the conversation.

She then produced an envelope and pushed it across the coffee table towards Jane. Inside, Jane found a blood-splattered Captain America trading card. Her stomach rolled and threatened to empty.

"He had a boner for Captain Stars and Stripes." Darcy poured more drinks, her hands steady now. "Thor's coming back. His Dad's drained, but according to Coulson, you and Heimdall are gonna make it happen."

Darcy barrelled onwards, letting Jane have her stunned silence, and filled the gaps with Coulson stories. How he'd believed all the Norse mythology stuff that Darcy had been researching and compiling for the SHIELD records. How he'd believed that her work was valuable and could help them understand Thor's people and in the future, understand other possible visitors too.

The next day, Jane tucked the envelope into her journal. It stayed pressed between the pages detailing the Nine Realms and the tree that Thor had drawn. That tree had kept her on this amazing path. He'd found his way back once. She believed that it would happen again too.

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**4. **Natasha was used to people dying around her. Her sparse room at SHIELD contained mementos of the few who had mattered. Not that anybody would realise – they were all practical everyday objects. The trading card she kept in a cache of weapons, thrown in as though haphazardly, packed in a rush. Like everything else, it was hidden in plain sight so that it invited less questions and attention.

Sometimes she pressed her thumb to it and remembered a man with bone-dry humour and temperament, who hadn't measured her by her past, who'd believed her assessment of Clint all that time ago, and who'd given her a long leash despite protocol dictating otherwise.

"You get results," was his reply when she'd obliquely questioned his motives.

There had been other layers of meaning in that one conversation which Natasha had easily unpicked. Coulson had trusted her, even though he really shouldn't have, even though his beloved SHIELD had always ordered him not to.

She had always desired to do her job perfectly, to never screw up. She'd come to realise that if she'd ever wavered, if she or Clint had ever made a notable mistake, then Coulson would have shouldered the blame. And now the ledger would forever be unbalanced because Natasha owed him a debt that she would never be able to repay. She would keep on trying though.

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**5. **Clint dreamed about killing Loki, about his arrows flying before Coulson fell. Some nights, he was the one that killed Coulson, sometimes without the mind control. Sometimes he woke up yelling. He refused all psyche evals. He heard Coulson's voice in his head as he refused – _go to the eval, Barton, or I'll tase you and drag you there myself_. He'd have done it. Clint had seen it happen to Stark at least twice.

He made coffee when he was avoiding sleep or when the nightmares crowded him out of his room. He usually wasn't the only one up – Stark hunkered down in his workroom for the long haul, Bruce watched bad TV. Natasha sometimes appeared for coffee too, wearing her green silk robe with the scalloped edges. They'd talk about Syria and New Zealand and remember that one time with the bull run and how he held onto your ankle? They said what needed to be said, then they sat together in the busy silence. It was what they both needed.

The trading card stayed in Clint's quiver, invisibly hidden in the lining.

He could work with the Avengers new liaison. Agent Hill had a good handle on the team's personality mix and hearing her verbally smackdown Stark was a beautiful thing. She wasn't stupid and she didn't believe that SHIELD's way was the best or only way. She wouldn't be the solid presence with the stealthy jokes though, the one who'd built a rhythm with Clint as they'd exchanged barbs. Clint had used that rhythm, embedded it into his field work so that it had boosted him on jumps and became part of how he'd aimed and released. It was a rhythm he'd never thought he'd have again after Barney.

Clint knew how to make a lot of different caffinated drinks. He needed them.

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**6. **Tony was on the board of several museums. Some he'd even visited. And he had fancy expensive pieces displayed in each of his homes. People expected it, and Pepper liked them. That was reason enough.

The important pieces – not necessarily the most expensive ones – he kept in his workroom, because hardly anyone was actually allowed down there. He had protocols for that. JARVIS knew in an emergency what needed to be saved. There was a painting his mother had always liked. It depicted wide open spaces, mountains, rivers, sky. Tony remembered the way she'd smiled at it. Looking at it himself made him want to put on the suit and start flying.

Then there was the vase that was the exact same colour as his favourite of Pepper's dresses. Truthfully, he had a few favourites but this one had some very particular memories attached to it. It had been a night to remember, and a memorable morning after too. More recently he'd added the first of many newspaper clippings about the Avengers. That picture had gotten his best side.

And now there was a Captain America trading card. The blood on it wasn't Steve's.

Coulson had never gotten any column inches. Just another government drone doing their job well enough that nobody knew about him. Hill was doing an okay job, though her threats needed some work.

The trading card was framed simply and hung where Tony wouldn't be able to avoid it. It was a more-than-decent reminder for the increasing number of all-nighters he pulled whenever Pepper was away, a reminder of why he was still going. When he worked for three days straight and reached the edges of deliriousness, Tony's mind wandered dangerously close to Howard Stark. Was this how his Dad had felt, desperate to find Captain America, desperate to make up for not inventing something that could have prevented that plane crash?

The comparison made Tony pause and reach for another drink.

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**7. **Steve ended up receiving most of the trading cards. He didn't know what to do with them. He sent some clean ones with a carefully worded condolence letter to Agent Coulson's family. He kept a couple in his wallet, alongside the Howling Commandos photograph that the SHIELD technology department had helped him track down. It was good to have something that reminded you that no matter how much the world changed, there were things worth holding onto and remembering.

He spent a lot of time drawing. Mostly it was people from his past, forming out of pencil lines and memories. Then Coulson started taking up space in his head and spilling out onto the pages too. Steve started drawing him more and more, reaching for charcoal every time. It seemed like the right material for the man.

Steve remembered the excitement Coulson had shown in his presence, just a little bit bleeding through the professionalism. Steve had felt awkward at the time. He hoped that Coulson hadn't taken it for unfriendliness or rudeness. He wished he'd gotten to know the man that Agent Hill sometimes talked about, the one who was friends with Pepper Potts and unnerved Tony into following orders, and who Natasha and Clint had both counted as someone to trust. The one who Thor had vowed to hold a warrior's tribute for on Asgard and who Bruce could talk about with something of a half-smile.

Steve would never get the chance to know him, except through the team's stories. So he kept on drawing, hoping to capture Coulson there and learn more.

_-the end_


End file.
